


The New Abnormal

by Swagreus (shiplizard)



Series: Do you want to have a harvest? [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Amelie LaCroix is a goddamn champ, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, How to live in a brain that doesn't feel things, Medical Trauma, Other, Past Brainwashing, Sir this is my emotional support tapeworm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 20:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17432969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiplizard/pseuds/Swagreus
Summary: Various scenes following Meat Cute, in which Gabe starts to adjust to what Talon has made of him and Reaper has Big Feelings now that Gabe can't have them anymore.





	The New Abnormal

Whatever Talon’s put in his body, it makes everything slow down around him. His thoughts aren’t hazy, but they feel like they’re moving through molasses to get anywhere, moving as slow as the operatives who move around him in slow motion. He’s numb-- not just his skin, his whole-- what’s the word-- 

**Proprioception**

_ Thanks.  _

**Thank me by letting me fix it,** Reaper grumbles, but they know why he’s holding off. He can’t fake this disorientation; he needs to just have it. 

Anyway. He feels divorced from his body, like he’s piloting it from a distance, not getting the right feedback from where his limbs are in space let alone what they’re touching. At first, it makes him a little nauseous.

Reaper mutters about blood oxygen levels, about low neurotransmitter production and accelerated re-uptake. He can feel them all up and down his bloodstream now, fretting and touching. It’s comforting, something that grounds him to his body.  Something that’s not behind miles of insulation. 

**Dampened so many pathways. Except adrenaline. Vasopressin. Blew those wide open. Thinks she’s so subtle. Doing surgery with power tools,** Reaper growls, after they’ve finished up the full body patdown-from-the-inside. 

_ So I’ll be more violent?  _

**So you’ll feel** ** _right_** **when you’re violent.**

_ That’ll make me easy to condition. Clever. _

**Not with my fucking host it isn’t clever.**

He can feel Reaper’s disgust slipping through him-- an alien sensation, feelings that have nothing to do with the complex chemicals he’s made of. That knowledge isn’t his own, but he’s split so wide open and receptive from Moira’s work that he doesn’t reject the way their thoughts bleed into one another’s. He knows it would have frightened him before, and now it doesn’t.  That’s useful. 

**I don’t like it.** The part of Reaper that is coiled around him, masquerading as leather armor, gives a little ripple, their constant embrace briefly tightening.  **I liked how you were. I liked how you thought. How you pushed.**

The alien’s sadness slips through their bond and into Gabriel’s brain like too-cold water-- he gasps at the sensation, but he drinks it down, only noticing how thirsty he is to feel anything when there’s something there to feel. 

It fills him like a desert plant until he bursts and it and spills over and oh god  _ oh god oh god Zurich Ana Gerard Jack Shimada McCree gone gone gone- _

“Stop,” he wheezes out loud, and the sorrow wicks out of him and back behind the thin barrier that separates his mind from Reaper. 

**“Sorry,”** Reaper responds in kind, vibration through its skull mask conducted through the bones of his skull. 

“No,” he mutters. “Good to know.” 

**“Yes. Easier to just fix you.”**

“I’m useless if you fix me.” He feels… puzzled. He thinks. Everything that Reaper has shown him about their function, their purpose, their very identity stands at odds with Reaper’s objections. Isn’t he a better host this way? He’s infinitely more pliable. That’s a simple fact.

A sigh up and down his bones. Just the aftertaste of resignation. 

**I’ve been corrupted, too. Long ago,** Reaper grumbles in his head. Something wet slithers between the mask and his face, a wet tonguelike sensory organ-- he can feel the chill and taste the old-ash of his own skin, a thousand tastes he can’t name that inform his chemical makeup. It doesn’t bother him, and he thinks… maybe it wouldn’t have even if he could be easily bothered. Reaper’s been a part of him for a long time, his brain is catching up fast, he’s sharing flashes of emotion, and he recognizes the lick as the affectionate gesture it is. 

**Like you, Gabe. Not just your body, but who you were. Bright harvester brain. Creative. Playful. Stupid empathic bonds with everything. You won’t get emotionally attached to broken coffee machines anymore.**

_ That coffee machine was a hero.  _ The thought is automatic.

**It was a coffee machine. It was not even programmable. Still held a memorial for it after it no longer functioned. You wept, and you pretended not to.** Reaper sounds more wistful than judgmental. 

Reinhardt hadn’t even pretended. His lips tug up, a conditioned response to the memory. There’s a brief vacuum, quickly flooded with apathy, but he knows a feeling was supposed to be there. 

**I-**

And then the Reaper goes silent, abruptly veiling their feelings.  The next thing that permeates the membrane is embarrassment, potent and acrid.

_ Looks like you can feel for us both now.  _

**I will.**  And then there’s a taste of that cringing embarrassment again, as if Reaper’s revealed something they didn’t mean to. He doesn’t understand. He lets it go. 

\-- 

There are still emotions accessible to him, just none associated with bonding or empathy. That makes sense. It’s nice that he won’t be completely anhedonic. 

Like when Moira waits three full days and then innocently escorts him to a combat simulation, and he can see her gloating. Doesn’t realize why until the sim starts, and a swarm of drones closes in on him and his shotguns are in his hand and a surge of joy comes up --

He laughs as they die in sparks, almost giggles as theytogether slip into shadow and rise behind a target, hear its servos squeal as it tries to turn in time and doesn’t. Delight floods him, simple happiness, a flood in a desert.

“This is your environment, Gabriel,” Moira says over the speakers. “This is where you thrive, do you feel it? It will feel better with live targets, when you are  _ truly  _ serving your purpose.” 

Oh! That’s it. His thoughts feel quicker in here. Right, classic conditioning-- deprive him of feeling for three days and then drench him with it so he’ll associate murdering for Talon with reward.  

Sad for her that he’s got an emotional support tapeworm. 

_ Isn’t that right, Hexxus? _

Reaper coils around his brain and laughs with him, and he can match them smugness for smugness. 

**I’m so happy to hear you laugh, I’m going to let that tapeworm thing slide,** they coo. He can taste the chemical cocktail of happiness through their link, a phantom sensation on his tongue-- it’s not as sweet as he’s used to, but it’s so good. 

Giddy, they lay it on thick-- “ **_Yessss. Everything is clearer.”_ **

_Stop it stop it she’s going to catch on_ he thinks but the thoughts feel carbonated. 

**You stop it you’re the one doing it,** Reaper hisses, dripping helpless amusement into his brain.

They’re smacking at each other internally like punchy kids at a sleepover even as they mow through one combat drone, another, rip a third one in half with their claws. Their laugh rises to a cackle.

**Caged God, I -**

And then there’s suddenly an unnatural silence. 

_ What?  _

Everything slows around them as he feels Reaper panicking-- why are they panicking-- and he has to take over their shared body as Reaper’s biomass roils, begins to drain back into his skin. 

_ Hey, no!  _ It’s his biomass too. Those black tendrils are as much his as his arms are Reaper’s. He holds his costume trembling in place before it can evaporate and leave him defenseless and naked. It’s all over in a second; they barely falter between one kill and the next. 

“Gabriel? Is something wrong? Your reaction time is slowing.” 

The threat of O’Deorain’s voice snaps them back into synch. 

**_“My energy reserves are running low. I can’t feed off these.”_ ** They lie instantly. In fact, the tasteless nutrient-rich gunk Talon has been feeding them will sustain them for longer than this-- but she doesn’t have to know that. Better that she underestimate their endurance. 

“Of course. My apologies, you need your supplements.” Theytogether listen keenly for suspicion in her voice, but they seem to have convinced her for now. They’ll have to be very careful for a while, though. 

They take an easy potshot at the last active combatant, lazy and leisurely enough that they can feel their spent mass come back to them, cell by cell-- the bullet they made becomes part of them once more, brings trace matter back with it ripped from their enemies, metals and hydrocarbons and polymers. Fuel for even more bullets. 

**Fuck, I can’t believe we can do that.**

_...you’re a psychic alien and nanotech impresses you. _

**Yeah. We don’t have that shit.**

Reaper is overcompensating for something, leaning into their gawking fascination just a little too hard, but without a particularly strong sense of curiosity it’s easy to table that for later, when they aren’t under observation. 

It’s easy to behave as expected, the way a starving dog would when offered food and comfort, slinking along after O’Deorain obediently. 

“We’ll be sending you out on your first assignment soon,” she’s telling them. Oh, she’s their handler, too? Talon must think she controls them. Figure out why, make sure she doesn’t have something up her sleeve. 

Figure out why Reaper freaked out back there-

**Nope don’t need to figure that out forget it**

_ Subtle, gooball.   _

**Eat me, fleshbag.**

They bicker back and forth as they sit through her cheerful lecture about all the good they’ll be doing for Talon, only half-hearing the bullshit she thinks she’s implanting into a starved, lonely mind. 

_...wait, you have a god? _

**Uh. We don’t talk about him much. Not maybe the greatest deity.**

Reaper’s trying to contain a chaotic burst of emotion, suppressing one impulse only to have another burst free. 

Primarily… fear? Shame? Despair? And another thing. 

_ Oh.  Oh, hey. _

**Nope. Nope nope nope shut up.**

_ You like me. You like me as a person.  _

**Your fault spreading empathy like a blight. I‘m not supposed to like you. I should be unable to like you. Dammit, Gabriel, how are you the one who can think clearly and I’ve been infested with this feeling?**

He’s prepared to hold themselves together this time; O’Deorain doesn’t even notice a change in their demeanor. 

_ Hey. You’re all I’ve got, Hex. I’m glad you at least like me.  _

**I do. So much. To the point of my own corruption.** Leathery tendrils form from his gloves, twine through his fingers.   **After the harvest is over, and you let me fix your brain. You will no longer want to be us. I hate it. I hate that I’m going to fix you anyway.**

_...I don’t know, Reaps. I can’t feel my own feelings right now.  _ They’re too weak and flickery, gone too fast to identify.  _ I’m glad I have you now. Maybe I will be then.  _

**Moot point. Years ahead of us.**

_ Good. ...couldn’t do this without you. Need you to feel for me.  _

Even the sorrow-- and he realizes he should have clued in earlier, but he was distracted by Reaper’s grief. Grief for him not being himself. 

_ Aw, you romantic. _

**Shut up.**

_ What did I almost feel just now?  _

Reaper captures the watery emotion, isolates it before it can get sucked away.  He remembers the taste of affection. 

**...you get affectionate toward coffee makers, it’s nothing special** **_,_ ** Reaper mutters in his head, and lets the impulse go.  He can feel how much it’s a cover for … some alien equivalent to bashfulness. 

He pokes the exposed feelings playfully, helps tuck them back in, and gets a burst of conflicting emotions in response. 

**You’re a fucking menace like this. I can’t wait until you can get embarrassed again** , Reaper sputters. 

“-Gabriel?” 

The nice thing about being two people is that half of two attention spans is almost a whole. They share their impressions of Moira’s monologue with each other quickly, review and correct, and drawl out an answer together. 

**_“You really think we need support? The Widowmaker is a lone agent, and so am I.”_ **

“This target is a difficult one. Get used to working with support, Reaper. You are part of a family, now. Talon is your family.” 

They make an acknowledging sound that they very much do not mean. Oh, yes. Take them in. They’re so pliable. They’re being so brainwashed. 

...it’s nice not feeling the rage and grief. It’s nice just being able to sit back and watch her attempts at conditioning bounce off.  It’s nice not thinking about what they’ve lost. And the lingering pleasure of combat has lost its giddy edge, but it’s enough to parlay into his very own feeling, a muted satisfaction at what’s to come. 

_ Hey, Reaps?  _

**Hey, asshole.**

He twines himself up in the presence in the mind, shares a certainty that echoes back, the emotion redoubling. Killing. The taste of their bullets filtering back to them with meat on them. 

**_Mmm. Yes. This is going to be fun._ **

\-- 

They don’t bother to introduce him to the Widowmaker ahead of time; he doesn’t expect them to. Everything’s a test.

They meet in the hanger next to a waiting transport:  O’Deorain and Vialli pretend not to watch him like a hawk when the Widowmaker comes stalking across the floor. 

He can feel their gazes sharpen when he sees the blueish, impassive face of Amelie LaCroix. 

Reaper gives a pulse of well-contained rage for him, feels what they know he should feel. Just a second; just a moment for an old, dear friend. Theytogether watch her without so much as a bump in their coma-slow heart rate. 

“Widowmaker,” he rasps. He’s taken to using their voice, the one that lives between his natural register and Reaper’s bass-- it’s comforting when the weight of nothingness and distance is too heavy.  And the consistency is important, of course. 

She gives him a curt nod. 

“Reaper.” 

“You’ll be briefed in the air,” Vialli says, oozing up next to them, laying a hand on both their shoulders. “Time to get underway, my friends.” 

Widowmaker looks at his hand, expressionless, turns her empty eyes on him, and his hand slides away. 

**Oh I like her. Gabe, I like her so much.** Reaper sounds offended.  

_ Aw, hexy-dexy gooball, are you feeling big feels?  _ He rides the wave of fondness, lifts briefly out of the grayness before sliding back under its surface without a fight.  

**You are a contagion.**

They pick Vialli’s hand up with their claws, move it off their shoulder, drop it. He skitters back with the offending appendages tucked behind his back. 

“Apres-vous,” Gabe rasps, sweeping an arm at the transport. 

“Your french is still appalling,” she notes dispassionately, nose crinkling faintly before she turns her back on him and struts over to the transport. 

“Play nicely, children,” O’Deorain mocks. 

Theytogether give her a blank look. 

“Oh, just go.” 

They go to smoke, slithering across the distance, reform in a seat in the transport. 

It feels weird as hell to come apart, but it makes Reaper gleeful as a kid in a candyshop. This is very new for the symbiote, an ability completely unknown to their race. They gloat about it in the shared confines of their head, and Gabe rides their pleasure for a while, disassociating from the uncomfortable seats, the too-tight harness, the lurch of acceleration as the transport takes off.  

**...you’re sublimating emotional discomfort into fatigue** , Reaper says, trying to keep its worry from dripping into his brain.  

_ Sorry, buddy. I don’t feel it.  _ He just feels dozy. 

**This is upsetting you. She’s upsetting you.**

_ Yeah, that makes sense. She wasn’t a killer, you know.  _

**I know. I see.**

He feels claws prick into his arms; looks down and sees their arms hugging themselves again. 

_ Aw. I’m okay. _

**You aren’t.**

_...we’re okay, though. You and me together.  _

**Yes we are. We are** **_fine_ ** **. We’re good.**

“Gabriel.” 

Their eyes open-- Gabriel’s eyes, not Reaper’s photoreceptive patches. Those are always open.  Reaper peers out with Gabe only peeking over their mental shoulder. The craft has steadied out-- they must be at cruising altitude. He doesn’t know how long he was drifting. But Reaper does, so it’s okay. 

Widowmaker has unbuckled and is approaching, a slim case in her hands. 

“Our briefing materials. Some supplemental ones.” 

She takes a seat next to him, popping the case on her lap. 

...he remembers her, young and brilliant, on Gerard’s arm. Posture always perfect. She sprawls, now, slumps, like staying completely upright is an effort.

He sympathizes. 

She pulls out a tablet-- he recognizes the face on the front, has to be their target, but she puts that aside, and takes out a paper booklet instead, offering it to Gabriel. 

Reaper eyes it briefly with suspicion, but they take it. 

It looks like a day planner, absurdly enough. They open it gingerly, metal-tipped claws sliding between the thin sheets.

Gabriel was half expecting a to-do list of targets, but what he gets instead is day after day of neatly handwritten checklists.

           _ Pain of the eyes

           _ Dry mouth

           _ Dry skin

There’s about a dozen and a half in the same vein, the same ones on every page, and on every page there’s a space to fill in: 

Last slept ___

Last drunk ___

Last eaten ____

Last toilet ___

"What is this?"

"Useful," Widowmaker says simply.

Theytogether flip through page after page of the same the same cramped round writing, reminders of the most basic self care. In the back, a tightly written index of symptoms, cross referencing them to dehydration, muscle atrophy, fatigue, low blood sugar, high blood sugar, skin infection.

"You made this for me." Not quite a question.

"I use something like it." She pulls a tattered notebook from a pocket in her jumpsuit. It's worn into the shape of her body, holding a slight curve. The cardboard cover's been worn down to a web of white lines, but he can just make out a single marker-stained ‘A’. "It is routine, mostly, now. At first, it is easy to forget."

"Ah."

Not that he's going to run into problems, with Reaper pestering him to drink fluids and take a piss every five minutes. They're worse than Ziegler.

**Twice. I reminded you to excrete twice.** Reaper says, offended.

Is that all? His brow furrows, looking over the past few days, realizing Reaper is right. It felt like a lot. It was well before he felt the need, anyway.

**You were in pain, the first time, and you didn't even notice,** Reaper grumbles. S **aved you from an embarassing rupture. You're welcome.**

_ Huh. _

So his newly numbed up body comes with a learning curve. That's all right, he's got a pushy symbiote looking over him.

Widowmaker doesn't have a symbiote.

He looks back down at the planner.

The syntax in the index is weird and in some cases he's pretty sure translated directly from french idiom. It's almost all in laymen's terms, no medical mumbo-jumbo, simple descriptions of basic ailments and basic self care. It's from a familiarly alien perspective, as if written by someone who doesn't know what thirst or a headache feels like.

Or someone who's forgotten.

_ What am I feeling? _

A pause as Reaper samples the suppressed impulse.

**Sad.**

"It does get easier," she says, in the same flat tone but just a little quieter. "You will adjust. It will feel like your body again."

"How long did it take you?"

"A few months. This, it will help, if you do not forget to take care of yourself."

**Guilt, now. Why guilt, Gabe?**

Because it didn't take him months. Because he has a fussy symbiote that's bridging the gap between his mind and his alienated body and he's recovered in a few days. Because he doesn't need this carefully handwritten notebook. It must have taken hours to copy, entry by entry, translating into english as she went. A user's manual for a body that doesn't send the right alarm signals, to a brain that wouldn't process them anyway, so he didn't have to figure it out himself.

Like she had to.

**Lost your stupid sense of empathy and still manifest symptoms,** Reaper murmurs. **Dumb human** **.** Gabe feels fondness and feels them ache, can't parse why.

"Thank you." He closes the planner carefully, tucking into a thigh-pocket that Reaper manifests as he reaches for it. "This will help."

She nods again, and he conversation ends like it never happened; they go on to discuss their target, throwing tactics back and forth.

Half an hour in, he realizes that they're leaning together, still and cold in the same way. Reaper lifts their arm without asking, draping it around her, burning a little precious energy so that their leatherlike biomass goes warm to the touch.

Widow sighs and tucks a little closer against his side.

"Cold," she says, as if she's just realized it.

"Yeah."

She hums softly while she thinks, and only Gabe knows that Reaper is crooning softly back.


End file.
